Description: Have you heard of anyone having an out of body experience? Well this article describes how some researchers produced the subjective experience of an out of body experience while people were in an MRI scanner to the researchers could see what parts of the participants’ brains were involved in the pout of body sensations.

So leaving aside for a moment the question of whether we can or ever do actually travel outside of our bodies (look up lucid dreaming and flying sometime) what might it feel like to have such an experience and how would that experience map onto the functioning of our brain at the time (assuming we are not talking about an after death experience yet)? Researchers have devised ways of “convincing” people that they are no longer located in their body, or more specifically that their body is somewhere else in the room from where they are. Sound confusing, read the article to see what they did and how the participants’ experiences involved activities of a series of “GPS cells” in the hippocampal area of the brain. By the way, the discovery of the GPS cells lead to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Medicine last year.

The second link above is to an article describing what some researchers have done to “test” the veracity of near death out of body claims by cardiac patients. Their methodology is simple and interesting though so far they have not been able to utilize it (though not for ethical reasons) and have had to rely on subjective patient accounts (which have been viewed with great skepticism by the psychological research community)

Questions for Discussion:

How did the researchers induce the feeling that the participants’ bodies were elsewhere in the room?

What is your view of the experiences they created for their participants?

What methodology has been set up to test the out of body claims of people experiencing near death moments?

Description: There is a LOT of Psychology that many people know about (thanks to the media, writers of trade publications and self-help books and Introductory Psychology instructors). But there is also even more Psychology that is not out there or that people may not know that they know. Read the article linked below (and/or watch the Ted talk also linked below) by British psychologist Ben Ambridge to see a bit about people’s Psyc-Q.

Source: Psyc-Q: You may know your IQ but what do you know about Psychology, your Psy-Q?

You have likely heard a number of myths or beliefs about things psychological held by the general public from you Psychology instructor. Ben Ambridge, a British psychologist has started to collect these myths, kernels of truth and realities together and, in a form of knowledge transfer from Psychology to the general public, he tells people (or writes in his books about) the myths and realities of human Psychological functioning. I do this when I teach as well. The gaps between Psychological knowledge (based on solid research) and common sense can be narrow in some areas and huge in others. Read through Ben’s psyc-quizzes (link 1) , watch his Ted talk (link 2) or read through his points on “Bad Psychological” science (link 3). And then see if you can think about some other myths from your own experience or course materials.

Questions for Discussion:

What are some of the generally held myths about human psychological functioning that Ben Ambridge writes or talks about?

Pick a “myths” and a reality and explain what is underneath (driving) each of them.

How should Psychologists present themselves in lectures and in the media in relation to these issues?

Description: Feeling like your thinking is less sharp or even describable as “fuzzy’ is a fairly common subjective report offered by people struggling with depression or bipolar disorder. However, there has been debate as to whether such feeling are reflections of actual changes in brain function or related, instead to changes in mood or motivation often associated with these disorders. This article reports on a large study that suggests the “fuzziness” may be due to changes in brain function associated with depression and bipolar disorder.

Physical and cognitive “slowing” are often noted as associated with depression and the depressive parts of bipolar disorder. What is not clear is whether those observations reflect changes in concentration or mental focus or whether they are simply correlates of the general depression of mood and motivation often associated with these disorders. The study described in this article used a sustained concentration task (watching for particular target letters in a visual stream of other letters). The researchers found that while there were some women with depression or bipolar disorder who did as well and non-disordered women on the task nearly all of the women scoring in the bottom 5% of the sample had one or the other of these two disorders. Beyond this the authors of the study suggest that the gradations in functioning they observed supports the recently suggested possibility that “mood disorders [could be viewed] dimensionally, as a continuum of function to dysfunction across illnesses that are more alike than distinct”. It may make more sense to view the symptom components (and the possible underlying causes) of such disorders as existing along graded continua rather than as categorical groups or domains (as they are typically treated diagnostically).

Questions for Discussion:

What are the results of this study suggesting about our view of depression and bipolar disorder?

The researchers reported that they “focused on results from women to take gender differences out of the mix”. What does this sort of investigative or experimental control allow them to say about the generalizability of their results?

How might the diagnosis and perhaps even the treatment of depression, bipolar disorders and other disorders shift if we move towards viewing them as reflecting continua of functioning?

Description: Do you think of your car as male or female? How about your smartphone? What about your fridge? Oh and what about your robot? Don’t have one of those yet? This CBC story looks at the question of why it is that in our science fiction books and films and, it turns out, in our robotics labs, when we build a human looking robot and give it a male or a female appearance we also seem to provide them with VERY stereotyped characteristics as well?

So ships are general female but what about other machines and what about robots? What about R2D2? Despite in-film references to it as a “little guy” “his” gender is not entirely clear. Is the robot “AVA” in the new film Ex Machina portrayed as stereotypically as “it” (she) is because of the fantasies of its predominantly male creators? It IS a fact that the field of robotics these days is predominantly male. This story asks the question of why our “creations”, when gendered, are so stereotypically rendered. Consider Ava (in Ex machine) versus T-800 Model 101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator film series) or Hal from 2001 a Space Odyssey. Given that built creations like robots cannot be said to have any sort of “inner genetic essence” it is clear that any gendered features of behaviours were put there or built in by their creators, in a concrete form of social construction. The results are worth serious reflection.

Questions for Discussion:

Identify several “robots” from science fiction books or films and describe how they are viewed from a gender perspective.

How might we use robots or aspects of robotics to investigate children’s understandings or beliefs about gender?

Are there examples on non-gendered robots (that actually interact with humans in a dynamic non-machine like way? If so what is our experience of them like? If not why not?

Description: Browse through the linked page showing the “Best of 2014 from Organizational Behavior” and get a feel for the impressive breadth of research that is being done in this growing area of Psychology (think potential career paths!).

Source: Wiley Online Library: The Best of 2014 from Organizational Behavior

Links between business and psychology are growing rapidly. Industrial/Organizational or I/O Psychology is the area of Psychology in which we study people in organizational and work-place settings and the Psychology or teams, groups and organizations. In addition to conducting research in a broad array of business/organizational areas I/O psychologists also consult or work in industry in areas such as team building, personnel selection and retention, organizational dynamics and culture, and a broad array of human resources domains as well. Explore the topic list on the right side of the linked page for a detailed look at the research domains in this part of Psychology.

If you are going to major in Psychology but are not yet sure about what part of Psychology will be your main focus you might want to have a look at the I/O psychology offerings at your college or university.

Questions for Discussion:

Pick one area of I/O or business psychology and describe the sorts of research questions they investigate. What areas of basic Psychology, as covered in your textbook and course(s) do these research areas draw from?

What business areas or origination departments might you might you want to investigate or network with if you were an I/O psychologist looking for consulting work?

What elective courses would be good to consider taking if you were working towards a degree in I/O Psychology and why?

References (Read Further):

Check out the free article links in the featured web page and if you find one or two that are of particular interest to you use your library’s web links to explore the journals containing those article further. Start with the most recent journal issues and/or the “online first” offerings if they have any and then work back a few years to get a feel for the kind of research being done in the area of Psychology or Business or Business (I/O) Psychology covered by that journal.

Description: What subjective/psychologically experiences do we associate with disease? Oliver Sacks, the deeply respected physician and professor of neurology discusses about how patients with migraines talk about the psychological experiences associated with their migraine headaches. The 81 year old Sacks goes on to talk about his own experiences with a particular palliative treatment for the metastatic cancer that is throughout his liver. If you have not read anything by Sacks, well you should, he brings medicine neurology and psychology vibrantly to life.

Source: Oliver Sacks on Feelings of Disorder (or Dis-ease) New York Time Review of Books

Much has been said, suggested and even researched about the relationship between things (cancer and other illnesses) going on in our physical body and our psychological or subjective experiences. In this article Oliver Sacks provides us with a grounding account of the subjective/psychological experiences of some of his patients struggling with migraines. He then goes on to talk about his own physical and psychological experiences dealing with a particular course of palliative (help with quality of life but not cure) treatment for terminal metastatic liver cancer. As with all of his work (find it and read it!), Sacks brings us right up to the front lines and into the lived experiences of people (in this case himself) dealing with physiological (medical) and psychological events. He provides us with MUCH to think about!

Questions for Discussion:

We cannot simply describe Oliver Sacks accounts of the effects of his treatment as only psychology. What else is involved and what does it suggest about how we ought to be thinking about our biological, social and psychological experiences?

What implications does Sacks’ account suggest for how medicine and psychology thinks about and becomes involved in the whole of people’s medical treatments?

Outline the links between Sacks’ accounts of his Migraine patients’ experiences and his own experiences with the impacts of his palliative treatment for liver cancer?

Description: What can we learn about how we are being perceived or received by paying attention to the head movements and related gestures of the people we are interacting with? Perhaps more than we are aware of.

Can or should people work when they are struggling with depression? Many do not have a choice. Recent alarm about the issue of pilots and depression and other aspects of mental health have created a media discussion that is often not well grounded in research data. This article and the related audio recording of the NPR itself looks at a few sides of these questions.

Questions for Discussion:

Which of the gestures or body language “tells” discussed on this website surprised you? Which ones were you already aware of and have used regularly?

Who might benefit from becoming better at reading the body language of other? How might they best be trained?

Is it important to be aware of our body language ort will trying to pay attention to is mess up our interaction skills?

Description: Despite the media putting heavy emphasis on the depression of the Germanwings pilot who is believed to have crashed his plane on purpose just what are the work implications of depressi0on? Can people work through or with depression? This article and audio file link (on the article webpage) discusses these issues.

Source: National Public Radio: Working Through Depression: Many Stay on the Job, Despite Mental Illness

Can or should people work when they are struggling with depression? Many do not have a choice. Recent alarm about the issue of pilots and depression and other aspects of mental health have created a media discussion that is often not well grounded in research data. This article and the related audio recording of the NPR itself looks at a few sides of these questions.

Questions for Discussion:

What are the impacts of depression on work?

Should employees disclose their depression to their employers? Might the answer to this vary according to circumstances and if so what are those circumstances?

How might Psychology and psychological (clinical) research inform these issues?

What is chemo brain video of talk by Tracy Vannorsdall PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlEItUKf7gs

Health psychologists and oncologists are increasingly discussing the impact that chemo therapies can have on brain or cognitive functioning. At issue are the nature and extent of the effects that diagnosis and treatment of cancer via chemo therapies can have on cognitive function. It is important to remain open to there being a complex interplay of issues at play. The powerful drugs used in chemo therapy may well have significant short and perhaps long term effects of cognitive/brain functioning. The stress associated with receiving a cancer diagnosis may also be a factor (as the lead article linked here indicates clearly). As well, there may be a wide array of psychosocial factors, before during and after treatment in addition to the impact of chemo treatment. Work related to chemo brain and related issues and phenomena represent a growing area of research in both neuroscience and health psychology.

Questions for Discussion:

What sorts of effects are associated with the term chemo brain?

What challenges does the term chemo brain present to oncologists, health psychologists, and cancer patients?

Are there other areas of research that should be considered in relation to the issue of chemo brain?

Description: Figuring out how other people are feeling, especially when they are experiencing different emotions than we are is quite a challenge. When can preschoolers do this? Do they have to figure it out using some sort of cognitive emotional analysis or might they start by more simply empathically resonating with another’s emotional state?

Source: Medical Press: Children begin to empathize with others at a younger age than expected

Developmental psychologists have suggested based on research that young children (in their early preschool years) are not capable of reading or empathizing with the emotional states of others when other persons’ emotions are different than their own. But perhaps asking toddlers to engage in a cognitive critical analysis of how someone else might be feeling is simply asking an unnecessarily complex question. Research by Henrike Moll takes a simpler approach. If you find yourself watching a scary or emotionally gripping film with friends watch how your friends respond to what they see on the screen or television. Can you see signs of empathy for the characters in the film in your friends’ actions? Moll watched closely how two and three year olds reacted physically as they watched a puppet who had most of their cookies stolen by an evil (well at least a not nice) other puppet. It was clear to Moll that her young participants knew (empathically) how the puppet felt when realizing its cookies were gone.

Questions for Discussion:

What would you ask a 3 year old if you were trying to figure out whether he or she tracked the emotional experiences of others?

What would you look for in the behaviour of a 3 year old if you were trying to figure out whether he or she tracked the emotional experiences of others?

What are some of the implications of Moll’s research findings (in terms of family functioning, children’s television programming etc? How might her findings relate to the foundations of intervention programs like the (Canadian) “Roots of Empathy” program (http://www.rootsofempathy.org/)?